SAN DIEGO -- At Mitt Romney's proposed California beach house, the cars will have their own separate elevator.

There's also a planned outdoor shower and a 3,600-square foot basement -- a room with more floor space than the existing home's entire living quarters.

Those are just some of the amenities planned for the massive renovation of the Romneys' home in the tiny La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, according to plans on file with the city.

A project this ambitious comes with another feature you don't always find with the typical fixer-upper: its own lobbyist, hired by Romney to push the plan through the approval process.

Work on the project has not yet begun.

But it may not help Romney -- whose wealth has caused him trouble connecting with average folks -- to be seen building a split-level, four-vehicle garage that comes with a "car lift" to transport automobiles between floors, according to 2008 schematic plans for the renovation obtained by POLITICO that are on file with the city of San Diego.

The documents were provided to POLITICO by a rival campaign, but authenticated independently by POLITICO with San Diego officials.

The U.S. Secret Service, in a coordinated appeal with the Romney campaign, requested that POLITICO not publish the specific plans, complete with architectural drawings, submitted to a local agency in California as part of the approval process.

"For operational security, we'd request that you not publish the blueprints," said Ed Donovan, spokesman for the Secret Service.

POLITICO agreed to the request on security grounds.

To help facilitate the construction plans, Romney has paid San Diego attorney Matthew A. Peterson $21,500 since 2008 to lobby city officials for the renovation after dropping out of the 2008 GOP presidential primary.

The leading Republican presidential contender wants to replace the beach house with a structure more than three times larger.

The fees, doled out in four installments and detailed in municipal quarterly lobbying disclosure reports, paid for Peterson's lobbying of four city officials involved in the proposed construction of the Romneys' home in the exclusive La Jolla section of San Diego along the Pacific coast.

The San Diego Reader first reported in 2010 that Romney had paid $1,000 to a La Jolla architecture firm to lobby city officials for a coastal development permit for the seaside property. The $21,500 paid to Peterson is in addition to those fees.

The schematic plans are only a precursor to more formal proposals to renovate the 76-year-old, 3,000-square-foot beach house. They include plans for the car elevator and more than 3,600 feet of underground living space. The plans detail that 1,500 cubic yards of earth be removed from the property to facilitate the construction of the large basement.

The plans indicate Romney would retain the home's existing ocean-facing outdoor lap pool while adding an outdoor shower and a "water feature," an unclear amenity that drew the attention of San Diego officials because of questions about where the water would drain.

It is not unusual for homeowners to hire lobbyists to petition local California boards for large home renovation projects, San Diego officials said.

A Romney official said that Peterson provides legal services to the Romneys and that San Diego rules require that anyone who contacts city officials or their staff regarding such a project must register as a lobbyist. City laws also mandate that engineers and architects register as lobbyists if they're acting in a similar capacity, the official said.

Though it is not Romney's primary residence, the former Massachusetts governor has escaped to the La Jolla beach house for breaks from the campaign trail. The Romneys also own a New Hampshire lake house and a condominium in Belmont, Mass.

For the exclusive neighborhood, the house is a comparatively modest two-story structure at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac from which one can hear the Pacific Ocean. A notice detailing Romney's requests for development permits is affixed to an exterior wall of the house next to the garage.

Sitting behind an eight-foot seawall, hedges and other greenery keep the house's small backyard out of public view (Californians, by law, have access to all beaches). A porch on the home's second level wraps around the house's beach-facing side, giving the Romneys an unobstructed view of the ocean.

Peterson, according to the biography on his the website of his law firm, Peterson & Price, A.P.C., is a "registered lobbyist" for clients on real-estate matters. His practice "emphasizes municipal and governmental advocacy" for clients seeking building permits, "property development entitlements" and "zoning violation matters."

On Jan. 1, 2012, Peterson gave $1,000 to Romney's presidential campaign. It is the only political contribution he made to a federal candidate that appears under his name on the Federal Election Commission's website.

Peterson did not return phone messages and e-mails seeking comment.

Listed on Peterson's client disclosure forms as "Willard Romney," the former Massachusetts governor paid Peterson to lobby four San Diego city officials: the project manager responsible for the planned construction, an assistant city attorney and two engineers.

On Monday, Michelle Sokolowski, the project manager in San Diego's Development Services Department, described her interactions with Peterson as "fairly routine" for someone seeking to engage in any major construction project. She expressed surprise that her name appeared on Peterson's lobbyist disclosure report.

"He's representing his client who submits his application to the city," Sokolowski said. "As a project manager, I am providing comment back to whoever is listed as the point of contact. ... It's fairly routine. In terms of whatever form he's filling out, our code defines the relationship as 'applicant.' It could be anybody who is designated by the owner to provide communication back and forth. They're allowed to receive information."

When word broke last August of Romney's plans to tear down the family's California home and rebuild on the site, the presidential candidate said no work would begin until after the 2012 presidential election. But Sokolowski said the timeline for acquiring the necessary permits could stretch for years.

Neither Sokolowski nor the other three city officials listed on Peterson's lobbyist disclosure reports would have final say over whether Romney's requests will be approved, she said.

Romney will still have to seek a coastal development permit and a site development permit from city hearing officers, whose decision can be appealed to the city's planning commission. Such a permit cannot be granted without a public hearing, which has yet to be scheduled, Sokolowski said.

Once the coastal and site development permits are issued, Romney would have three years to submit detailed construction plans to the city. Those plans would then have to receive municipal approval before any construction could begin, Sokolowski said.

Because the Romney property abuts the Pacific Ocean, decisions made by the San Diego city planning commission can be appealed to the California Coastal Commission, a state agency, Sokolowski said.

For instance, the California Coastal Commission staff, according to one city report, "has indicated a preference to see more native plants incorporated into the landscape plan" at the proposed new house." The matter of the native plants was resolved, according to an October 2011 document, though it is unclear how.

And Jack Canning, an assistant civil engineer in the city's Engineering Review department, said Peterson sat in for Romney during a 2011 "resolution meeting" to discuss whether water that currently drains through the Romney property to municipal sewers would continue to do so after the proposed reconstruction.

Canning said he could not say whether the matter has since been resolved since the permit application has not yet gone to a public hearing.

Canning, whose name also appears on Peterson's lobbying disclosure report, said the attorney is a well-respected advocate who has worked "on both sides" of development issues, sometimes representing clients seeking to build and sometimes working for neighbors concerned about the effects of proposed new construction.

"He deals in this type of projects," Canning said. "He deals with coastal projects. He represents sometimes both sides -- sometimes it's people who are the applicant, sometimes it's the people who are not in favor of the applicant."

The other two city officials named as subjects of Peterson's lobbying on Romney's behalf -- Don Weston, a senior civil engineer, and Shannon Thomas, an assistant city attorney -- did not return phone messages left at their offices Monday.